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Talk:Pope Urban VIII
I assume we're calling him an ATL Pope because we're considering BIDM an AH. I guess this is as good a place as any to suggest that we might want to refine our definition of AH a bit. Stories like BIDM and WHGTY are amusing little vignettes set within real history, not meant to be taken seriously as PODs that will change the course of history. There will be some minor butterflying moving forward, but that's not the point of such stories. And it certainly isn't meant to affect the lives of incidental characters like this pope in any appreciable way. Turtle Fan 02:19, 19 May 2009 (UTC) :No. TR 04:16, 19 May 2009 (UTC) ::No what? It's very rude to give a one-word answer to a paragraph that didn't end in a yes-or-no question. To say nothing of its uselessness. Turtle Fan 04:21, 19 May 2009 (UTC) :::No to hairsplitting AH the way you are doing. TR 04:23, 19 May 2009 (UTC) :::Being more substantive: The end of BIDM makes it quite clear that the life and worldview of Galileo going forward will absolutely change. It's left to us to guess, but that POD is clearly illustrated. :::WHGTY--the case you make is somewhat more compelling here. While Shakespeare has an awakening, as it were, it isn't spelled out that he's going to reevaluate his writing. It could go either way. TR 04:27, 19 May 2009 (UTC) ::::I appreciate the substantive answer. It's rather demeaning to be brushed aside like that. I would have flamed you had not that Edit Conflict thing intervened. ::::Galileo was a historically significant figure but there's a difference between changing a person's biography and changing history. Using a change in a person's life as a cause makes for good AH: Joe Steele, MwIH, that story in Alternate Generals by I remember not whom that had Chamberlain fighting for the Rebs at Gettysburg. As an effect? Well, as Gioisio himself gets Galileo to admit, the things that concern one individual often are met with indifference by most others. I would submit that changing a historically significant figure's life need not affect history itself. If it's not at least heavily implied that going forward history will not be noticeably different from OTL, I just don't see where it rates. Expecting alternate history to describe alterations to history is not unreasonable. :::::I see where we differ. You want not just "alterations" but "substantive and definable alterations". I think a change in attitude in an individual whose work impacted Western thought for centuries after his death is a sufficient enough deviation from our own history. You do not. I find that more hairsplitting than anything. TR 04:48, 19 May 2009 (UTC) ::::::The difference between slight and substantive is hairsplitting? ::::::Galileo's life was valuable, you submit, because of his historical legacy. That legacy should remain unchanged. The proofs of heliocentrism are already in existence as of his psychotherapy session. Future generations will read them just the same, and that's why they'll remember him. Some of the more informed populace will remember that he did some backtracking to avoid Inquisitors. Some of the more informed populace do remember that in OTL. The exact nature of the backtracking will interest hardly anyone. :::::::True, but the story opens up the door to the possibility that his backtracking will go further. Not only does he say "But it does move" (which he probably didn't say in reality), he concludes "But who cares?" That suggests someone who's given up intellectual pursuit, or at the very least will spend much more time and energy weighing and measuring than his OTL counter-part did. The story also offers the possibility that the introduction of psychoanalysis centuries early will be an effective tool for the Church in dealing with heresy. TR 04:03, 20 May 2009 (UTC) ::::::::Interesting, but not the point of the story. If it were developed we could be on to something, but after one incident the point is dropped. It's more of a vignette, maybe even a joke, than part of a real timeline. Turtle Fan 19:36, 20 May 2009 (UTC) ::::::If his life's course were being changed in his youth, early enough to interdict him from performing the tasks for which history remembered him, then you'd have a point. ::::::The same, I believe, holds true for WHGTY. Even if Shakespeare's writing is severely affected by his contact with the time travellers, by 1607 most of his best-known and most-studied works were written. Henry V, Richard III, Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Julius Caesar, Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear. . . . That's enough to earn him the current place he holds in history. Now maybe contact with Stoppard would inspire him to write drastically different plays that would completely blot out his earlier legacy; but as you say, we can't say with any real confidence that he changed anything at all. Turtle Fan 03:19, 20 May 2009 (UTC) :::::Furthermore, even if Galileo's life is changed moving forward, that doesn't affect Urban VIII. The circumstances of his life in a world with Gioisio will almost certainly be all but indistinguishable from those of OTL. ::::::I wasn't aware that impact to such and such a person was the determinative factor in whether they found themselves in a ATL subcat. I thought it was enough that they held the office during and or after the POD. TR 04:48, 19 May 2009 (UTC) :::::::I agree with that standard, though I've long toyed with the idea that they should only count if they hold the office in the next selection after the POD. For instance, Rayburn would not be an ATL Speaker, at least not for MwIH; he held the office when the POD happened, based on pre-POD history, but immediately lost it at the first available opportunity once circumstances changed. I'm still toying with the idea. ::::::::He held the office until 1947 in that TL. Plenty happened in that year and a half. TR 04:03, 20 May 2009 (UTC) :::::::I disagree that BIDM contains a POD. ::::::::Just psychoanalysis centuries early and a far more hesitant Galileo as a result. TR 04:03, 20 May 2009 (UTC) :::::::::Not a cause, complete with its own effect. Turtle Fan 19:36, 20 May 2009 (UTC) I use the lack of impact on Urban's life and papacy to illustrate this point. Also I would point out that since his execution of the office of Pope will not be appreciably changed by these events, his ATL papacy will be indistinguishable from his OTL papacy. Turtle Fan 03:19, 20 May 2009 (UTC) Let's open this to the floor. I don't think we're going change each other's mind. TR 04:03, 20 May 2009 (UTC) :It's been open. It's not like we were going to yell at someone else to shush if they wanted to join in. :Since in the absence of a real admin we're all about consensus about mods, I'll let the point drop if no one wants to back me up on it. Turtle Fan 19:36, 20 May 2009 (UTC) ::Just for the record, I side a bit more with TR. I think that Urban's papacy does change slightly; the POD is more speculative, it's if a Freud-like character had enacted psychoanalysis on Galileo. THis will change Galileo's work/aims and most likely affect Urban's dealings with Galileo, which does change an aspect of his papacy. I think AH fits as a descriptor here. Elefuntboy 06:03, 21 May 2009 (UTC) :::The aspect of his papacy affected by Galileo concentrated on obtaining a public recant of heliocentrism. In this story he succeeded. In real history he succeeded. I don't see much of a difference. :::If the story were about a very powerful monarch falling under the influence of an innovator in an important new field . . . But it's not. It's a vignette of one historical character's interaction with one fictional character. If we extrapolate ramifications beyond that, we might as well discuss MLK's role in ItPoME. Turtle Fan 19:30, 21 May 2009 (UTC) ::::That analogy does not work. MLK isn't mentioned in ItPoME. Here, Urban is mentioned, and is pope during and after the change in the course of history. ::::We're not speculating beyond the story by including Urban in the ATL category. Just acknowledging that he reigned in a world different from ours. TR 00:24, 22 May 2009 (UTC) :::::A world different from ours, yes. But I don't view that as the standard for AH. Turtledove's straight historical fiction projects could also qualify as worlds different from ours, because they include fictional characters and bring interpretations to the historical record which may or may not be accurate. Given the balancing act he tried to play among the very different versions of events at Fort Pillow, for instance, it's highly unlikely he got everything right. Turtle Fan 03:50, 22 May 2009 (UTC) ::::::The intent of Fort Pillow was not to present a differnt world. With the opening tagline of BiDM: "Hardware technologies are not the only innovations that could have had profound effects if introduced before their time....", we are lead to believe that the story does take place in a different world. TR 21:53, 22 May 2009 (UTC) :::::::Really? I never read it, never saw that line. It does change things a bit. Turtle Fan 23:24, 22 May 2009 (UTC) Penis Enhancements TR, why did you revert that anon's edit? It was very germane; I certainly saw the connection. Turtle Fan 01:45, 21 May 2009 (UTC)